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Today, we’re watching CinderElmo, another Sesame network special from Christmas 1999. Elmopalooza was pretty much a slam-dunk for our side, so we’re in a good mood. We’re pumped, we’re ready. A Sesame Street fairy tale? Bring it on.
It’s morning in the Kingdom of Sesame, and town crier Grover wakes everyone up with his cries of “Five o’clock and all’s well!” Fat Blue opens his window and complains that Grover’s shouting before the sun’s even up. “I do not do the weather, sir,” Grover sniffs. “Only the time.” It’s a cute opening. We can work with this.
But then we get to CinderElmo’s house, and things take a turn for the shady. Kathy Najimy’s the Evil Stepmother, although to be completely honest, she’s more like the Slightly Off-Putting Stepmother. She has two sons — Telly Monster and Baby Bear — and then she’s also got a stepmonster, CinderElmo, who dresses in rags and cleans the house. I’m not entirely sure why Telly and Baby Bear get to be her sons, while Elmo has to be the put-upon stepson. What’s the story with this family? They don’t elaborate. It gets even more confusing because Zoe is there too, also dressed in rags and looking basically oppressed, but nobody really mentions her or what her deal is.
The whole setup is kind of vague. The S’Mother orders Elmo to clean the house, which he does… but he seems to enjoy dusting, so it’s not clear what the problem is. The S’Mother wants one of her sons to marry the Princess, and they basically say okay, sure. Elmo wants to go to the ball and dance with the Princess, but the S’Mother says no, you’re too dirty to go to the ball, so he can’t. Zoe can’t go to the ball either, but nobody seems to care about that.
Meanwhile, over at the palace, they’re preparing for the ball. The Princess is played by Keri Russell, who maintains a tone of distant bemusement through the whole show, like she got cast in the role ten minutes before they started shooting and she can’t quite figure out what everyone is talking about. Grover is the King’s Prime Monster, which is fine, except he was the Town Crier in the first scene, so whatever. Grover informs the King about a law that says the Princess has to choose a husband before she turns eighteen — which happens at midnight tonight — or else the King will lose the Kingdom. To someone. For some reason. This takes them all entirely by surprise. Keri says that she’s too young to get married, but there it is in the big dusty law book.
Okay. Is it too much for me to ask that the producers of a TV special figure out what the heck their TV special is about before they turn the cameras on?
I mean, this is all very cute. The sets and costumes look great. There are some good gags. But it’s like they filmed the first draft of the script, before they could figure out what anybody’s motivation is.
Oliver Platt shows up as Elmo’s Fairy Godperson. He’s a temp Godperson — “there’s been a tremendous demand for Fairy Godpeople recently” — and he says that he can’t really do a lot of magic. Anyway, “this whole idea that a big Fairy Godperson is gonna fly into your window and just fix your life when things get sticky, I — I find it very shaky, I really do.” He sings a song called “Do Something” about how you should take action instead of sitting around and wishing. It’s a funny song, and Oliver Platt can’t sing worth beans, so he really has to sell it. It works. I love it.
But then he goes ahead and casts a spell that gives Elmo a fab new outfit, a big coach, and horses. He even magics up a dress for Zoe and turns their dog into French Stewart. So what was the point of that big song about not expecting other people to magically solve your problems?
I’m just gonna jump to the ending, cause that’s where the whole thing really just falls to pieces. The Princess sees Elmo dancing, and thinks he’s really cute. (Quick sidebar: Elmo’s dancing is really cute. So really cute that it’s almost worth watching the whole special for it. When they sell the Elmo’s Dance Grooves video on late-night TV, I’m buying one. But I digress.) It’s midnight, the spell breaks, and the Princess is forced to choose a husband… so she chooses Elmo, despite the fact that Elmo is three and a half years old.
She finds the shoe, the shoe fits Elmo, they tell him he has to marry the Princess. Elmo laughs: “Marry? Before kindergarten? Elmo’s too young to get married! But Elmo would love to be the Princess’ friend. And we could dance together! And play miniature golf!”
That’s cool with the Princess, who didn’t really want to get married anyway. But what about the big dusty law book? Doesn’t this mean that the King is going to lose the Kingdom? Grover reminds the King that he’s the King, and he could just change the law — so he does, and everyone happily goes to the palace to play, including Telly and Baby Bear, who also didn’t really want to get married anyway. The Stepmother seems happy that everybody’s playing together, and she cheerfully waves goodbye to them.
So wait, hold on. Everybody’s happy now, and nobody had to get married, and the kingdom wasn’t really in danger? And the Evil Stepmother wasn’t really that mean after all? Am I getting all this? Cause from where I’m standing, it looks to me like absolutely nothing happened in the whole dang show, and I’m out one hour of my life. What goes on around here?
I hate to say it, but I think the main problem here is Elmo. He’s funny, he’s cute, he dances well. But he’s three and a half, and they’re sticking him into a romantic fairy-tale where he just doesn’t belong. He couldn’t go to the ball because he wants to marry the Princess, because he’s three and that would be icky. So they water down his motivation and say that he just wants to dance with her. And that sort of lowers the bar, drama-wise.
Dramatically, Elmo’s a problem. At this point in his career, he’s become this paradigm of Unselfish Love. He loves dancing, and he loves the Princess, but he doesn’t demand anything in return. He doesn’t want to marry her. He just wants to have fun. But because he’s so perfectly unselfish, he seems to have fun doing pretty much anything — even dusting his Stepmother’s house. So what’s the point? If your main character is going to be cheerful no matter what happens, then you can’t really build any conflict around him.
I’m scoring this one as a point for the Elmo Detractors. This week isn’t turning out to be quite the slam-dunk I thought it would be. And what are we watching tomorrow? Elmo’s Magic Cookbook? I’ve got a bad feeling about this…
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by Danny Horn
